Wisconsin Studies
Mr. Nazer
Room 120
Name:________________________________________ Date:________________ Hour:_______
Unit #1 Geography of Wisconsin
ASSIGNMENT Glacial Impact on Geography and History
SCORE
7
All history happens in some place. The names, facts, and dates in our history books sometimes leave the impression that the past
exists only on paper between two covers, but the past is actually all around us. On at least one morning during the past 14,000
years, Indians pursued game just outside this school’s doors. We share space with a Jesuit missionary or French fur trader that trod
soil in Taylor County. Less than a mile from where you're desk is, 150 years ago a pair of surveyors made notes about the
landscape as they marched by, laying out the boundaries of our suburban roads, city blocks, and rural farms. The nature of any
geographic feature or natural place affected what could or couldn't happen. Our landscape help explain Wisconsin's past, and
understanding the lay of the land helps us understand the events that happened here.
On the east Wisconsin is bordered by Lake Michigan; on the west, by the Mississippi River (mostly). On the north and south it is
bounded not by natural features but by human imagination: a line run across the prairies by surveyors in 1832 separates us from
Illinois, while another line run in 1847 divides us from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The eastern lakeshore is generally low and
sandy or marshy, with only a few harbors deep enough to handle large ships. The western edge of our state is formed of immense
bluffs overlooking the Mississippi, punctuated by steep ravines, or coulees. The southern border runs mostly through fertile land
that is nearly flat and watered by sluggish, shallow
rivers. The northern boundary crosses through dark
forest relieved by high wetlands and the lakes that draw
thousands of tourists each summer.
These four principal habitats -- eastern lowlands,
southern prairies, western valleys, and northern forests -overlap and blend into one another in the interior.
Moving east to west in the southern part of Wisconsin,
the rich prairie becomes increasingly hilly, until west of
Madison few large tracts of perfectly level land can be
found. The northern forest is quite dense above a line
from Green Bay to Minneapolis. It grows gradually less
thick as one travels southward, until it gives way to open
lands along a line roughly from Green Bay to Prairie du
Chien. Many unique, smaller landscapes, such as the
Door Peninsula and the Kettle Moraine, intersect the
four major ones.
Human history happened first in our river valleys, which
provided easy transportation, nutritious soil for growing
food, and diverse habitats for game animals and birds.
The rivers tend to flow either northeast into the Great
Lakes and eventually the Atlantic, or southwest into the
Mississippi and, in the end, the Gulf of Mexico. In many
places one can stand on a ridge between two streams,
one headed for the icy waters of the North Atlantic and
the other for the sultry swamps around New Orleans.
Besides the Mississippi, several other rivers helped
shape Wisconsin history. The state is bisected north to
south by the Wisconsin River, which starts in the forest
near the Michigan line at Lac Vieux Desert and runs
south to Portage, where it veers southwest before
emptying into the Mississippi. Other important
waterways that flow into the Mississippi are the Black, the Chippewa, and the St. Croix rivers in the northwest and the Rock River
in the south. The most important rivers running in the opposite direction are the Fox, the Wolf, and the Milwaukee, which empty
into Lake Michigan.
Today's rivers, lakes, and landforms are largely the result of glaciers that drifted slowly down from the north during successive ice
ages. Most of the state was bulldozed by the repeated visits of these glaciers, some of which were as much as a mile thick. The last
of them was the Laurentian Ice Sheet, whose petal-like lobes (above) stretched down over northern and eastern Wisconsin about
17,000 years ago. The southwestern third of the state was untouched by these glaciers, leaving unique formations such as the
Wisconsin Dells, Devil's Lake, and the Baraboo Hills. This so-called "driftless area" contains many ancient landscapes that
Wisconsin's
native
peoples
have
considered
uniquely
powerful.
Wisconsin Studies
Room 120
Glacial Land Features
Kettles
Eskers
Drumlins
Moraines
Answer the questions based on the text and images above.
1. This type of glacial land feature forms when portions of glaciers break off from the
whole. The ice chunk is surrounded by rock and dirt. When the ice melts it leaves a
deep hole that often fills with water.
2. This type of glacial land feature is a long narrow ridge of gravel and rock
deposited by glacial lobes, one end of which is blunt and the other end tapering.
They can be a mile long and up to 100 feet tall. This land feature looks like a tipped
over canoe.
3. This type of glacial land feature results at the edges of the glacial lobe’s advance.
They consist of rock, soil and geological debris. Often times it appears to be a series
of hills or ridges in a line.
4. This type of glacial land feature is a long narrow winding ridge of sand or gravel,
deposited in small, continual quantities by a stream flowing under a glacier.
5. What caused the unique land and rock
formations around the areas of
Wisconsin Dells, Devil's Lake, and the
Baraboo Hills?
6. According to the Glacial Landscape
Map, specifically, moraines can be used
as indicators of what?
7. Define lobes.